This invention relates to methods of fabricating nanostructured devices and to devices fabricated using such methods.
Structures having components with dimensions on a nanometer scale are being considered for use in the areas of optics, electronics, mechanics, magnetism and so forth. Nanostructured materials differ from corresponding bulk materials and single atoms. Nanostructures encompass various structures referred to as, for example, nanoparticles, nanotubes or quantum dots, and may potentially be used as building blocks for ordered and complex materials. The fabrication of nanostructures on substrates for application in devices, however, remains as a major challenge.
Many practical applications of devices in photo-electronic, electronic, sensor, storage and display technologies require the two-dimensional or three-dimensional patterning of nanostructured materials on surfaces, in one layer or in several layer thin films.
Nanostructures having dimensions of less than, for example 10 nm are desirable for bit-patterned magnetic storage media. However, since optical lithography is limited by the diffraction limit, the resolution of conventional optical lithography is usually limited to about 50 nm half-pitch. Thus conventional optical lithography is not suitable for fabricating such nanostructures for bit-patterned magnetic storage media.